Valentine’s Day

Posted by Gemma Crundwell on 5th April 2018

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. 14th February is a day to express our love and affection for each other with romantic gestures, handwritten valentines and gifts. I, like many (dare I say most) are guilty of simply picking up a mass-produced card and bunch of overpriced roses or chocolates while doing the weekly supermarket shop, but there must be a more personal approach for your boardgame obsessed other-half. So below are some boardgame related twists on traditional gifts

Love Letter:Love Letters is a card game where courtiers seek to win the affections of the princess by delivering her love letters before the other suitors. Suitable for 2-4 players it is easy to learn and quick to play. At just 20 cards and a few tokens, it’s a small, lightweight game which can easily be packed for a romantic weekend away.

Chocolates: King Chocolate is a game we haven’t played but it is on Tabatha’s wishlist. King Chocolate is all about harvesting the most cocoa beans and turning them into chocolate. The player with the most chocolate is crowned King (hey what about Queen?!?) Chocolate. Again a 2-4 player game, but with a box full of tiles, cubes and coins it’s not quite as portable as Love Letters.

However if a boardgame just doesn’t hit that sugar spot, you can get edible versions of some boardgames. Chocolate Monopoly, or Scrabble anyone? Definite gap in the market for a chocolate Euro/Ameri-Trash game. CMON … chocolate Zombicide – eat the zombies as you kill them?

Flowers: Sorry I cant solve this one. Boardgame Geek does list some flower-based board games, but if you can’t buy it on Amazon then it doesn’t really exist in my world! Gap in the market – game idea brewing!!!

Jewellery:Splendor is all about collecting jewels. 2-4 players and quick to play. In addition to the full game, I’ve got the mobile version on my phone and have made the most of my time walking from the department to the staff carpark playing this!

If that doesn’t hit the spot and you need sparkly things how about a pendant in the shape of a meeple or cufflings with dice?

Perfume: Parfumwas discovered by searching for ‘Perfume boardgame’ on Amazon – we haven’t played it, but I’d given up wracking my brain to think of a perfume based board game. It’s by Queen games, and we own several other board games by them. Based on my normal boardgame purchasing logic it must therefore be a good game. Players distil precious essences in order to create unique perfumes which they then sell.

Romantic weekend away: If you want a weekend away, why not stay at The Great Escape Lakeside. A one-of-a-kind game based property on Airbnb in Florida USA. It has been all over Facebook recently and is even in the Guinness Book of World Records. With each room themed on popular games like monopoly and Risk it has all the essentials i.e. a giant water slide, lazy river, escape room, laser maze, human foosball etc. Sleeping 43 and just shy of £1000 a night, you’re probably not going to book this as a romantic getaway. Once we make our millions – Juniper Games away day?